


no reason at all

by EmotionalSupportPuma



Category: Borderlands (Video Games)
Genre: Bisexual Character, Comfort, Gen, Introspection, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Past Relationship(s), Past Tim/Ember, Past Tim/Moxxi, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Talking, Trans Character, tim is trans and both him n ember are bi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-25
Updated: 2020-08-25
Packaged: 2021-03-06 19:15:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,657
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26104054
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EmotionalSupportPuma/pseuds/EmotionalSupportPuma
Summary: The Jackpot is finally free, and yet, Timothy remains.
Kudos: 8





	no reason at all

**Author's Note:**

> title is a lyric from "i cant handle change" by roar

Why was he still here?

Seven years in this hellish casino and Timothy had spent every day wishing for a chance to get back out. A hope that he'd managed to harbor, despite the pessimism whispering that this was a final, unending way for Jack to fuck up his life. That he'd rot and die in the "Handsome Jackpot". 

But he was free. Freer than he'd been since the day he signed the contract, agreeing to be a body double for someone who had seemed so normal at first. So charming. Tim could remember looking at him and thinking, "really, how bad could this be? Be the body double for a rich asshole and get  _ paid _ to do it. A real win-win."  _ Heh, you know what they say about hindsight _ , he thought bitterly as he looked through the large window. The glass sparkled with its newness, beautiful and unblemished. A stark difference from what sat on the other side of it.

Workers flitted about far below him. There was so much that needed to be fixed up still, seven years was a long time for something to be systematically destroyed. The entryway had been the first to be polished up, it had been left relatively unscathed. No one could reach it while the lockdown went on. Timothy didn't much like hanging around there. Even with the new touches Moxxi had been making, the halls were far too similar to Hyperion for him to feel anything other than an uncomfortable amount of distrust. 

A large part of him, the part that was undoubtedly Timothy, wanted to be down there helping with the repairs. The least he could do was make a positive change for once. But paranoia had been seeded in him far too long ago, leaving him waffling at this window for just under an hour. Everyone here knew Jack was dead, his usual fear taken care of. Everyone here  _ also _ knew he had body doubles and they were particularly targeted during the lockdown. They were as free as he was now, but that didn't mean that any hard feelings were moot. Did he really want to risk a confrontation gone sour, a hasty bullet, and die before getting out of the casino after all? The irony alone from that sort of death would kill him a second time.

"Having second thoughts, eh?"

He nearly jumped out of his skin at the sound of Ember's voice behind him. For someone with loud heels and an ever-present stage personality, she sure had an uncanny knack for catching him off guard. Always had, really. Maybe he just got lost within his own thoughts too often. 

"Second thoughts?" He repeated, leaning into the confusion to hide his embarrassment.

"You are still here." Ember pointed out patiently, "When you could be galaxies away."

"Don't really have anywhere to go. Pandora wouldn't want me, I don't want Hyperion, and hell...no one at home would even know me anymore."

"Is that not a blessing, in a way?" 

He relented with a smile, "S'pose you have a point."

Returning home to be unrecognized might sting a little, but it did have its benefits. To walk among the town he grew up in and have them all use the correct name, how nice would that feel? Being a body double wasn't all irrevocably terrible, although the list of pros was far,  _ far _ shorter than the list of cons. Actually, if he thought about it hard that was the only true upside: it had allowed him to transition in a way he never could have afforded otherwise. He had considered himself one of the lucky ones once upon a time.

But when he thought twice about it, Timothy didn't  _ really _ want to go home. There was nothing left for him there. Pandora...maybe. If he could convince the locals to see past the face he held, there was a chance at slipping into a semi-normal life again. He'd made friends with at least a few redeemable people over the last decade. Surely some of them had continued to survive while he was locked in hell. They had always been a lot tougher than him.

"Hey, Em, you've got the numbers for at least one of those Vault Hunters echos, right?"

She glanced over curiously, "Oui."

"Could you ask them about some old friends of mine? See if they've kicked up dust recently?"

"I don't see why not."

Excitement began to trickle through the cracks of his ever present anxiety. It'd been seven years,  _ seven,  _ since he had spoken to the other Vault Hunters that Jack hired. Unfortunately, Timothy could remember hearing second-hand that Wilhelm had kicked the bucket. It wasn't a shock, the man never cared for anything other than his cybernetics. So long as Jack provided the ability to enhance them, he'd do anything the maniac asked. It was only a matter of time before something bad happened.

But on that note, what about Nisha? She was independent enough that she'd be fine in a world without Jack, however, the whole dating-him thing would put a target on her back. Tim had a sinking feeling that she wasn't around anymore either. Which was a shame, despite her cruelty, Nisha and him had been surprisingly close once upon a time. If anyone could  _ truly _ have been close to her. She'd never seemed like the kind of person to fully trust another human being.

Aurelia and Athena, on the other hand, had a pretty fair chance of still being alive. 

"Why not go see them yourself?" Ember asked, coming to stand beside him at the window.

" I, well-" He paused to clear his throat and run a hand through his hair, "This is going to sound ridiculous. I mean, of all people  _ I _ should want to get as far away as possible…"

"It is a daunting prospect, eh? Understandable."

Timothy snorted softly, "Don't tell me you're scared to leave too. Nothing's ever scared you."

"Maybe it does not  _ scare _ me per say." She paused to give him a meaningful look, "But this is not such a black and white scenario. Neither of us has somewhere else to go, now that we're free."

"Your stage is here." 

"That it is. I could find anywhere to perform, you know, but I rather like the one I have here. It's nice to have a job."

There was something in the way the last sentence was uttered that truly struck him in the gut. Timothy had always,  _ always _ viewed Ember as this pinnacle of confidence. Even in the wake of this seven-year-hell she'd always known exactly what she needed to do to survive. There was never a moment where she thought they'd be trapped in the casino forever. Ember was absolutely positive from the very beginning that she'd be free again one day. 

But when he looked over at her, really observed the way she stared through the window with unseeing eyes, Tim realized that she was as lost as he was. What was she without the casino? What was  _ he _ without Jack? He had entered the casino that fateful day as a body double, just an actor playing a part for the unforeseeable future. Seven years later and Timothy could be himself again now. Of course, he still had the face, some of the DNA and a painful amount of mental reconditioning to undo, but Jack was dead. Never to come back again. 

They were quite the pair. Unbelonging in the rest of the world and unable, or rather, unwilling to completely untether themselves from the casino just yet. 

"You could ask Mademoiselle Moxxi for a job here as well." Ember spoke after another minute of silence.

He scoffed, "And get myself gutted by the other workers?" 

"Every person in this casino understands that you are not Jack."

She had a valid point, but Timothy didn't want to admit to that aloud. Even admitting to it within his own mind felt like a foreign decision. His anxiety refused to believe it, insisting instead that it was all the more reason to snuff him out at last. To rid the world of the last lingering tendrils of a tyrant. He couldn't blame them for that wish. 

"Yeah, but it'd be weird to ask Moxx for a job now." Timothy paused to shoot her a worried glance, "We broke up, ya know?"

"I heard."

That had been yet another kick in the gut. Sure, they'd only been together for a handful of weeks after their reunion, but it still stung. She'd insisted there were no hard feelings and Timothy really believed that. Moxxi hadn't ever seemed like the type of person to settle down for good, so it didn't come as a huge surprise. Just another blow to ego after seven incredibly tough years. 

"She still cares about you.  _ I _ still care about you. A change in relationship does not mean we wish for you to suffer. " Ember pointed out meaningfully.

He sighed, "Yeah, I know, Em, and I appreciate that."

Sometimes he wondered what it was about the two of them that just couldn't mesh. Had it only ever been him? Ember was so incredibly patient with him and continued to be even while remaining friends rather than lovers. Maybe one day, however far off in the future it may be, Timothy could pull himself together enough to make things work between them again. If his paranoia could ever truly be fixed by this point. He wondered idly if Ember would be willing to wait that long for somebody as broken as him. Had she tossed all romantic notions for him by now? His anxiety was convinced she had long ago.

They didn't speak for a long while. Just two people, among thousands, in a casino far off, among millions of stars. Inconsequential and forgotten. But for the moment they had each other and maybe that was all that mattered. 

**Author's Note:**

> I just wanted to write some timtam introspection without romance, but y'all can see how well that went. I guess whether you read it as romantic or just close friends is up to you (bc i like both lmao). This was just a small exercise to work on between my longer fics, so I'm not as happy with it as some of my other works, but oh well! It's good enough to post at least
> 
> if you wanna see excerpts of my writing before its posted here, or just my dumb shitposts, my borderlands tumblr is tannithvibes!


End file.
